


Not a Sound

by OceanTheSoulRebel



Series: Gilded Leaves [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: 3rd omniscient POV, F/M, Finger Sucking, Outdoor Sex, Sexy Times, age gap, oooh get it girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 14:15:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14546499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanTheSoulRebel/pseuds/OceanTheSoulRebel
Summary: Shale Lavellan and Varric Tethras fall into something a little unexpected, but not unwanted, during his shift on watch duty. Luckily for them, it's an otherwise uneventful night and perfect for nocturnal explorations.





	Not a Sound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softlyue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyue/gifts).



> This was part of a fic trade on the Writers of Thedas discord server! Feel free to contact me on [tumblr](https://ocean-in-my-rebel-soul.tumblr.com) for an invite link, if you want.

The bright flames pushed at the shadows of the forest, causing them to dance and flutter in the night. It was almost poetic, in a way, he thought, with the moon shining brightly above them and the stars flickering in the night sky. He might be moved to pull out a journal and write for a bit about it, if he weren’t on watch duty.

Well, it had been an uneventful trip so far, and there hadn’t been any dangers through the night. He might anyway.

A shadow slunk its way through his peripheral vision, and his hand crept to Bianca’s holster on his back before he recognized it. “Willow? Shouldn’t you be in bed?” 

“Can’t sleep,” she replied, materializing in the firelight. Varric snorted and watched her approach. “Figured you could use the company.” Shale nimbly stepped into the ring of logs that circled the fire pit, serving as seating while they waited their turn to feed the flames, the orange-yellow light of the fire catching in the auburn waves of her hair. 

He was beautiful in the firelight, Shale mused, the hard lines of his face softened slightly. She watched as he made room for her on the log bench, one hand toying absently with the leather strap of his crossbow.

“Sounds like you’re looking for trouble, kid, you’ll be a mess come morning.”

“A woman can hope, at least,” she quipped with a grin.

Varric heard the tease in her voice and turned from the fire. His eyes darted over her face and skimmed over her just long enough to realize she only wore a long tunic, her bare thighs ghosting over the log as she straddled it, facing him. He could feel a familiar heat pooling in his belly, low and hot and wanting.

“You know I’m not nearly as young as you seem to think, right?” Shale pouted slightly and leaned forward on her hands as she got comfortable, the loose shirt gaping open just as intended. She watched him face the fire again, poking idly at it with a long branch, and her fingers itched to find his own.

He could see the way her auburn hair curled about her collar bones, left exposed by the gaping collar, even from the corner of his eye. “Yeah, well, learn to dress like it and I’ll reconsider the pet name. And twenty-nine isn't exactly old.”

“Neither is forty!" Shale paused, then smiled coyly. "So it’s a pet name, is it?”

“It’s a… you know what, never mind. Let’s go back to you just being Willow.”

“You mean your _other_ pet name for me?”

He shook his head with mock exasperation and kept his eyes forward, trying his best to ignore her. “You know, your sister or whatever would skin us both if she caught you out here half-dressed.”  

Shale carefully scooted closer, reaching her hand out to trail her fingers over his arm. “That didn’t seem to be a deterrent for you last night, when you caught me at the waterfall,” she murmured with a smile. “I was even wearing less than this, if you remember.”

He closed his eyes against the memory, bare and dripping in the dying afternoon light as she bathed. Even covered in mud, or maybe because of it, she was astounding, and every part of him realized it at once when he stumbled his way to the water. Varric had been stunned into silence at the sight of her - pale skin, long limbs, and wavy hair the color of polished garnet - when he accidentally walked in on her bath, and had been caught red-handed and red-faced in the bushes. “Shale…”

Shale walked her fingers lightly over the fabric of his sleeve. “I love it when you do that rumbly thing with your voice. Makes me shiver all over.”

She leaned forward, moving into his personal space, close enough that it would take just so little effort to push her back against the bench, pull her shirt up, and… By the gods, she wanted him. Shale bit her lip and watched his face, fighting the urge to crawl into his lap. It would be too easy, but she didn’t want to scare off whatever it was that had slowly grown between them.

Varric caught her hand. “Willow, this… isn’t a good decision.” He huffed under his breath, his imagination running away with him about all the ways it could be great, could be amazing. He couldn’t. He _shouldn’t._ The Inquisitor’s little sister had to be off-limits, right? Wasn’t that a law somewhere? He could think of a list of people, as long as his arm, who would have his balls for messing with her.

“You’re doing it again,” she said softly. A shadow flashed across his face - guilt, or stubbornness? - under her gaze, and she sighed. “I’ve noticed you do that, talk yourself out of a good thing. Or, what could be a good thing.” Shale straightened and pulled her fingers from his grip, putting herself back together. “I misunderstood, honest mistake. I’ll, uh, just go, then. Have a good night.

“Shale,” he started, mentally kicking himself. Varric reached for her hand to stop her from leaving as she stood. “You are… very beautiful, and I’ll be a nug’s uncle before I stop noticing that.”

She moved to stand in front of him, the fire warm on her bared legs. Shale ran her free hand through her hair, a knot of nerves forming in her stomach. “I hear a ‘but’ in there, somewhere,” she murmured cautiously.

“Yeah, kinda.” Varric sighed, but he didn’t move back, or let her go. Against smarter judgement he brought their joined hands to his lips to kiss her fingers and he could see her breath hitch, her cheeks flushing in the fire light.

Shale felt the blush all the way from the tips of her ears to her chest, and even the light brush of his lips had fire coiling at the base of her spine.

“This may just be your glorious chest hair speaking,” she said huskily, captivated by his warm, amber eyes, “but maybe we could have the conversation after I convince you this isn’t as wrong as you think, if you are okay with that? We can be the most responsible of old people later, I promise.” Tentative fingers rose to brush his temple as he stared up at her, struggling with whatever inner demons he had.

His hands finally found her hips in answer and pulled her to him, the generous curve of her ass settling across his lap. Her thighs bracketed his hips and she leaned into his chest, the heat of her skin scorching through the thin fabrics that separated them.

“You’re incorrigible, you know,” he muttered, mouthing at her shoulder, dragging his lips across her bared skin. “Tempting an old man like me. Dangerous stuff for a young lady.”

She laughed at that, sparks buzzing over her skin where his lips trailed. Shale carded her hands through his hair and spilled the golden strands from their tie. “I’d believe your severity if you weren’t currently palming my ass like it held the answers to life’s questions.”

He looked up at her with a smirk, savoring the raw heat in her eyes, all for him. Andraste’s flaming butt cheeks, how long had it been since a woman he wanted had wanted him? “You know, maybe it does,” he said pragmatically, considering the idea. “I’ll have to be thorough in my questioning to make sure.”

Shale swiveled her hips in his lap and he pulled her tighter against him, slotting their bodies together easily. She moaned and pressed against his growing hardness, feeling her body flush and flutter when he rocked beneath her..

“Big words, master storyteller,” she gasped, fire licking up her spine. “Shift change won’t be for another couple hours. Questions later, I know what I want _now._ ”

“Oh, is that what you’re getting at, then? Thought we were just enjoying the pleasant weather.” Varric hooked his arms under her ass and rose, lifting them both off the log. She squealed in his grip, locking her ankles behind his back. “Careful,” he warned, “you make a sound and it’s game over.”

“Surely you wouldn’t leave a lady wanting, now would you?”

He strode outside the ring of the firelight into the forest, bringing them into the shadow-drenched woods. A thrill of pure, molten desire ran through her at how he easily handled her, the strength of his body evident in his every step.

“A lady, never. You? That depends.”

Shale ran her fingers through his hair and pulled lightly as they tracing a path to the waterfall not far from camp, but away from prying eyes. Varric deposited her on a low boulder near the little lake, so close she could hear the crashing of the waterfall on the rough stones that formed the lake bed.

“Remember, not a sound.”

Varric’s deft fingers quickly unbuttoned her shirt and whisked it from her shoulders, spreading it out on the boulder as a cover and leaving her in just her smalls. He grinned in the moonlight and stepped between her spread thighs, an appraising gaze raking over her skin. “I’ve wondered how far those tattoos went - didn’t get a good look yesterday.”

She bit her lip to keep from speaking and wrapped her legs around his calves, the decision earning his pleased nod.

“Good girl, Willow,” he praised quietly, running his hands over her bare shoulders. Varric trailed his hands along the gentle vines of ivy that ran down her arms and chest, skimming his calloused fingertips over the swells of her breasts. She sighed, arching into his hands, and he eagerly responded, cupping and fondling their firm weight.

Shale moved to cradle her leg around his hip, locking him into place as Varric played his thumbs over her pebbled nipples. She could only take gasping, needy breaths when his mouth replaced his hands, nibbling at her flesh and doing his best to break her. Varric laved his tongue over her skin and sucked a sensitive nipple into his mouth, worrying at her with his teeth and tongue before alternating.

“Careful,” he murmured into her cleavage. His fingers stroked down her sides and teased the creases of her hip. “Don’t want to wake up the camp.”

Shale whined when his hands crept over her thighs, then hissed when he stepped away. “Varric!”

“Come on, Willow, I told you the rules.” His hand crept to his groin and he palmed his cock with a low groan.

“You’re the absolute worst,” Shale muttered under her breath. Her wide eyes stared at his hand, taking in the movements of his clever fingers. Her teeth sank into her lip to keep from whining again.

“And yet, you’re still here. Must love that dramatic tension as much as I do.” He grinned wickedly, noticing her rapt attention. “Now, are you able to play by the rules, or are we done here?”

Shale nodded and reached for him, hooking her fingers around the leather strap of his crossbow harness to pull him to her. She caught his free hand, bringing his fingers to her lips. “I want you, Varric,” she whispered, flicking her tongue over the blunt digits. Shale opened her mouth and he pressed two fingers inside; she could see his eyes darken, even in the low moonlight as she laved her tongue around his intruding fingers, sucking and licking with deliberate strokes.

“Shit - Willow, you’re gonna - _fuck_.”

Shale’s surprised gasp pulled a shiver down Varric’s spine when he moved her forward on the boulder, sliding her over the thin fabric of the tunic. He removed his fingers from her mouth to capture her lips, plundering insistently with his tongue. Wet fingers snaked between her thighs and pushed her smalls aside to tease her slick folds. Varric swallowed her surprised moans, his free hand cradling the nape of her neck as her own hands tangled in his hair.

Her thighs trembled as he pressed a thick digit into her. Varric swore as she clenched around him, holding him tight as he explored her. A second finger wrenched keening moans from her, muffled by his lips as he stroked her clit with his thumb. He kept her rocking against his hand with his slow, easy thrusts, fingers crooking to stroke her inner walls.

She dragged her mouth down his jaw, nipping and sucking her way down his throat when he thrust into her with a third finger. She buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and bucked wildly as he found and ground against the bed of nerves high inside her.

Shale spasmed around his fingers, stretched and full with every thrust of his hand. Distantly she heard the litany of mewling, begging noises that tumbled from her lips, but could not be embarrassed by the need he inspired in her.

“Come for me, Shale,” he murmured in her ear, just before taking her lobe between his teeth. Her whole body trembled and she sobbed into his shoulder as he worked his fingers into her tight cunt. He could feel her clenching, tensing under his ministrations, and ran his free hand down her back. “Come, my willow tree, that’s my girl.”

His thumb pressed insistently against her clit once more and she broke, biting down into the meat of his shoulder to keep herself from crying out as she came. Varric groaned and  flexed his fingers, crooking them to scrape the pads of his fingers against her inner walls and she gasped his name, wriggling against him, her thighs clenching around his hips as she rode out her orgasm.

Shale’s demanding rocking slowed to a languid roll against him and he chuckled, mouthing the tender skin just below her ear. “Easy, Willow, easy.” He pulled back slightly to watch her face, flushed red all the way to her chest, and grinned. “Now see, sometimes rules can be fun.”

Her glassy eyes rose to his and she smiled, taking in his own labored breathing and the strain of his cock against his trousers. She bit back a throaty whine when he withdrew his fingers from her. “You know,” she panted, “it’s not fair for only one of us to be naked.”

“Technically, you’ve still got your smalls on.” He grinned and carefully unstrapped his crossbow to lay it against a nearby rock. Varric set to untying the sash at his waist, letting his loose tunic hang freely.

Shale scoffed as his shirt trembled in the breeze, the hook-and-eye toggles all but falling open at his movements. “Are you telling me you don’t even have proper buttons for that? I could have just tugged a bit and gotten you shirtless?” She let her eyes roam over his bare chest, transfixed by the way the moonlight played over the lines of his abdomen.

He laughed - she was _offended!_ “You didn’t ask.” Varric paused for a moment and smirked at her playfully. “But now that you mention it, I should have real closures added. Or sew it up a bit, you know, for warmth and all that. Can’t have the Seeker or Her Inquisitorialness chiding me for my dress habits.”

The thought wrung an impatient groan from Shale. “You’re a tease, and you’re horrible,” she muttered as she watched the shirt fall from his broad shoulders, his golden skin dappled with moonlight. She rose from the boulder, giving a yelp when the cold stone connected with her warm flesh, and grabbed her tunic to arrange their shirts as a makeshift ground cover behind him.

“Nah you’re just easy to -” Varric landed on his ass when she shoved him off-balance, and he could only see long expanses of her pale, moonlit skin - thick thighs supporting her round hips, a soft belly, beautiful breasts, and a face that would find a home in any fine art gallery, as if carved from marble by the finest, most pompous Orlesian sculptor. It was… if he had the brain capacity for it he might recite poetry at the sight - or maybe prayer. Definitely prayer, he thought, as she crouched to work at the laces of his trousers. 

“Easy to rile up,” he finished, his throat suddenly dry. His hips canted, thrusting into her hand as she brushed over his cock.

“Var-ric,” she murmured, a slight sing-song quality to the word, and helped him shimmy his pants and smalls down his thighs. Shale watched his cock twitch, bouncing against his stomach as they freed it from the fabrics of his clothes. He was… _Creators,_ he was impressive. Just the thought of him inside her made her twinge with want, with need as she raked her eyes over his naked body, lingering on his cock. Thick and veined, the head purpling a bit where it was exposed from the foreskin.

Varric stroked a loose fist over his shaft and inhaled sharply at the contact, twitching within the grip. “Shale.” His voice was shaky, even to his own ears, but this is where they were and that was that. 

A quick motion of her own had her soaked smalls tossed aside and she moved to straddle him, trapping his length between their bodies. He shifted under her, sliding against the slick slit of her cunt and nudging against her clit and wringing a sharp gasp from her kiss-bruised lips. 

“Willow,” he groaned, “I need you to - yeah, just like that.” His hands held her hips as she shifted to take him, rising to align their bodies before slowly lowering onto his cock. It took all the strength he had not to just pull her down, to thrust wildly and lose himself in her tight sheath, and he counted himself lucky that he didn’t spill as soon as she had him. Shale clenched and he swore loudly.

“Ah,” she gasped, “what was your rule about noises?” He stretched her, filled her, pressing her sex open around him as she slowly seated him deep within her. Shale braced herself with her hands against his broad chest and rocked, cautiously, testing the feel of him sliding within her. A shiver ran up her spine when his hands urged her to ride him slowly. “Make a sound and this is over, isn’t that what you said?” She captured his gaze and slid sinuously down his length, squeezing and releasing in a slow rhythm.

“You keep looking at me like that and it will be over either way,” he ground out. Varric bent his knees, planting his feet to thrust hard into her. The position had Shale flung forward, her hands braced on his shoulders, and brought her delectable breasts just to mouth level. Varric lifted his head to lick a wet stripe over one of her nipples just as he pulled her down on his cock and she mewled, music to his Maker-damned ears.

“Fuck, Willow, _Shale -_ I -”

Shale nearly growled at the feeling of his fingers digging into her hips, bruises blossoming under his fingertips as they moved into a quick, rough rhythm. She could feel her own orgasm building, the blunt head of his cock pressing perfectly where she needed him with each stoke. She couldn’t help the gasping moans that built in her throat when he shifted again, leveraging her weight atop him to pull her tighter, harder, burying himself into her sheath over and over again. Shale clamped her teeth around her lips to muffle the sounds that threatened to wake the forest around them. She leaned back, shifting her weight to brace herself against his knees, and his long, drawn out groan tipped her over the edge into her release.

The force of her muscles clenching and rippling around his cock had him following not long after, another handful of rough, quick thrusts before he spilled inside her. Varric ground into her, flexing and pulsing as he came with ragged breaths, her body expertly wringing his pleasure from him.

He could feel her trembling above him and watched as she ran shaking hands through her hair. “Fuck,” she breathed, looking down at him with a lazy, satisfied smile. “That was…”

“Yeah.” He gave a short thrust, enough to jostle another low moan from her lips, and he carefully drew her to his chest before settling them against their makeshift sheets. The plaintive whine she made when he pulled out of her shouldn’t have made him feel proud, but damn if it didn’t. “Now if we’re very, very lucky, your incredibly intimidating clanmate isn’t going to find us and demand my head on a pike.”

She smiled at the thought and mentally waved it away.“It wouldn’t be a pike, it’d probably just be her sword - ironbark is strong enough, it would do the trick.”

Varric muffled his laughter against her cleavage as they settled together, bodies cooling in the night air. “Yeah, that’s reassuring. Thanks so much for that.”

They lay for a long moment, a tangle of sweaty limbs and rushing heartbeats. Abstractly, she knew he had to get back to the camp; she felt guilty for persuading him away for so long already, but she was glad of the results. His fingers twisted in her hair, the slight pull drawing her back from her nerves to the moment.

Shale took a deep, steadying breath. “Varric?”

“Yeah, Willow?”

“You’re welcome to bunk with me, if you’d like. After your watch ends. Or whenever. No pressure.” She bit her lip and lifted a hand to his brow, brushing a sweaty lock of hair from his face.

He turned to nuzzle at her throat. “Let’s have that conversation we just put off, but that... That could be nice." Shale relaxed in his arms, pliant and apparently pleased with his answer.

They could spare another few minutes away from the fire, he decided, and held her close.

**Author's Note:**

> Get to know Shale at my [OC intro and wiki-style summary](https://ocean-in-my-rebel-soul.tumblr.com/post/173611075731) on Tumblr!
> 
> Comments or other thoughts are always appreciated! Thank you for reading!


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